Keith Saunders

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Archive for the ‘media’ Category

I have noticed that nearly every person under 40 speaks with vocal fry – an affectation akin to a scratchy throat. It’s millennial code for I am cool.

Vocal fry annoys me to no end, especially when I’m listening to the radio and the host seemingly does not have the ability to speak like a normal human being. I have to wonder what is on the mind of the station’s management. Can’t they detect the fry, and if so, aren’t they bothered by it? Walter Cronkite didn’t use vocal fry. I’m wondering if vocal fry is so prevalent that it is next to impossible to find a decent radio voice.

The case in point is this Saturday NPR show called Invisibilia, whose troika of hostesses sound as if they were awoken at four in the morning after having undergone a tonsillectomy. Suffice it to say that it is unlistenable, as is 90% of NPR’s weekend programming. At least Keillor is gone.

Dating in the internet age is easy, especially if you are young and reasonably good looking. All you need do is swipe a few times, match with someone who strikes your fancy, and away you go. In the old days you would have to meet someone, strike up a conversation, and get to know each other before getting up the nerve to go on a date.

I was a short, introverted guy as a teenager and young adult. I was a jazz musician playing in bars where most people were 10 to 20 years my senior. I wasn’t in college, consequently I had a hard time meeting women to go out with.

When personal ads became trendy, sometime in the early to mid 80s, I felt that the playing field had somewhat evened out. Here I could express myself with the written word, alleviating the sometimes painful and awkward step of introducing myself at a bar or party.

Now, with swipe technology, the field has reversed itself. Once again cosmetics rule the day. Needless to say, this is bad news for the middle-aged man!

I read an interesting and troubling article in Vanity Fair detailing the current hookup culture prevalent among 20 and 30 somethings. As a father of a teenage daughter it was disconcerting to say the least. Some of the men interviewed bragged about sleeping with hundreds of women per year. For them it’s not a question of if they’re going to hook up, but rather if they feel like it.

It’s horrifying to read about what the women go through. They are inundated with ‘dick pics’ and what written text they receive does not go far beyond, ‘Can I come over in 20 minutes?’ One man managed to hook up without even typing any words — he sent emojis.

I’ll have more to say about this later. It’s time to practice the piano.

Naked Trump statues are happening, and apparently in more than one city. There’s one in the Castro district of San Francisco, as well as four other cities. That’s what you get when you brag about the size of your penis in the age of the smarmy internet.

That said, I am more amused than offended by the statue. In fact I’m not offended at all. What has offended me is an incurious, docile media that has treated this man as if he was a serious, qualified candidate. Too many articles take Trump’s proposed policies seriously rather than question the hubris and sanity of the man.

You’ve got a media that is in the pockets of corporate America, and in Trump, a ratings bonanza. This is not a good recipe. It is not in the media’s interest to question the man or to report on an America that is decidedly more racist than was previously imagined.

If all that is left for us plebes is to engage in locker room humor then I say bring it on!

I have to say that this Pokemon Go game is really dangerous. Why, I was just playing it the other day when… [Flashback music]

I’m driving to the post office when I hear a beeping coming from my phone…a Charizard! I spring into action. I’m driving into oncoming traffic, onto the sidewalk, just missing pedestrians, and I end up crashing into the dry cleaner’s window.

The next day I’m playing the ap and all of a sudden I find myself in the ladies room. Of course everybody starts screaming, “What the hell are you doing in here, you sicko? Get Out!”

“But there’s a Squirtel…”

“WHERE?!”

Everyone whips out their phones until we discover him cowering by the XLerator.

I’m really going to have to delete this thing. It’s just not saf…WAIT! There’s one by the PGE transfer station… To the Pokemobile!

I’ve posted before about my ambivalence, nay, my antipathy towards these political videos that are currently running rampant in the wake of the Trump storm. My politics are to the left of most people I know, (although in the Bay Area I’m a centrist) but these videos offend me.

How is it helpful to portray Trump supporters as moronic backwoods yokels? Sure, they are a strong demographic for him, but I know he must have supporters who are intelligent and can articulate what they like about him and dislike about the Democrats.

In the case of this particular video it seems the filmmaker has gone out of his way to find the least intelligent people possible. I don’t see how shaming the right is going to sway a voter who is on the fence. It’s more likely it would have the opposite effect.

I saw another video in which a reporter interviewed college students asking them who won the civil war. Of course the video showed 5 people in rapid succession answering ‘The South’ or ‘I don’t know’ but who’s to say the interviewer didn’t ask 90 people and edited in the morons?

I’m not buying this video-happy society we live in. Yes, folks are generally less intelligent than they were 30 years ago — how could they not be with all the de-funding of education. But they’re not that stupid!

After my previous post decrying the decay of western civilization through videos I decided to see for myself what it was like to produce to have a video experience of my own. In the past week I had received a few notices on my Facebook feed about so and so being ‘live.’ I wondered what it was so finally I clicked one of the feeds and there was one of my ‘friends,’ – more like an acquaintance – live and in full pontificating mode. He was all over the map but mostly he was bloviating about the coming election.

I found it kind of self centered and self-serving. Until I tried it myself. Then I thought it was fun. I donned a beret and took ‘hater’ act live and beta test a five minute rant.

I started off be-scowled, pontificating about people posting over-produced political videos with the sound track and fancy graphics. I was segueing into the Academy Awards when I noticed at the bottom of the screen there was a display of who was viewing my feed. Soon my friends began commenting and that’s when I lost it, breaking character in a fit of laughter.

I have to admit, as much as I hate to, that being live and having an audience was intoxicating. It was visceral in a way that a written post is not. The thing is, it’s too easy and the risk of crossing the line from detached, ironic humor into trite, self aggrandizement is too easy. You’re trying to be funny in the moment and your friends are there — who knows what offensive bon mot may slip from your mouth in the moment. With the written word there’s a good chance you would take stock of what you are writing and edit out something potentially hurtful.

After 5 minutes I realized I was out of gas and said goodbye to my viewing public. I’ll try to resist over-saturating myself on Facebook, but the lure of the audience is strong. Pray for me.

Someone on my Facebook feed posted an article decrying downfall of society as a result of pre-packaged peeled oranges at Whole Food. I would counter that articles like this, which contain headlines that tell us how to think and feel, are what’s wrong with society.

I love how in the middle of the story the writer does a u-turn, talking about the backlash against Nathalie Gordon, the anti peeled-oranges activist: But some people are now pointing their anger at Gordon rather than at Whole foods, arguing that the pre-peeled oranges were helpful to the elderly and people with disabilities. From the looks of it, just as many people are ticked off about Whole Foods pulling the peeled oranges from store shelves as there were people who were ticked off about them being there in the first place.

BAM. A perfectly, but rarely executed, 180 degree PC turnaround! I didn’t see that one coming.

I get that this is an organization that wants to promote kindness to animals…but I don’t care. If I see a duckling, cygnet, or a baby hippo stuck in a chain link fence I’ll do my best to set it free. (well, maybe not the hippo) I’ll tell you one thing I’m not going to do. I’m not going to have my wife film it so that I can brag about what a superior human I am.

In the end what is this video going to accomplish? You’re either the kind of person who’ll save an animal or you’re not. No Facebook video is going to serve as a behavior modification tool. I’d sooner watch a video of this guy having sex with his wife. Now that’s a cause I can get behind!